Budget 2026 ignored 10 key challenges flagged in Economic Survey: Chidambaram

Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram criticised the Union Budget 2026-27 for not addressing core economic challenges flagged in the recent Economic Survey, raising questions on fiscal management and policy priorities.

Former Finance Minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Sunday sharply criticised the Union Budget 2026-27, saying it failed to address at least 10 major economic challenges highlighted in the Economic Survey released earlier.

Addressing a press conference, Chidambaram said economists, commentators and students of public finance would be “astonished” by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s speech, arguing it lacked a coherent response to the structural concerns flagged just days ago in the survey.

He said while a Budget is more than a statement of annual revenue and expenditure, it must, in the current context, lay out a clear narrative to tackle the country’s most pressing economic issues.

“I am not sure if the government and the Finance Minister had read the Economic Survey 2025–26,” he said, adding that even if they had, they appeared to have “discarded it completely.”

Chidambaram listed 10 key concerns he said were identified by the Survey and widely acknowledged by experts, but were not meaningfully addressed in the Budget speech - stress on manufacturers and exporters due to tariffs imposed by the US, prolonged global trade conflicts weighing on investment, a widening trade deficit, particularly with China, Low Gross Fixed Capital Formation (around 30 per cent) and weak private sector investment, uncertainty in foreign direct investment flows and sustained outflows of foreign portfolio investment, slow fiscal consolidation and persistently high fiscal and revenue deficits, contrary to FRBM targets, a gap between official inflation data and rising household expenses on essentials such as education, healthcare and transport, closure of large numbers of MSMEs and the struggle of surviving units, fragile employment situation, especially high youth unemployment, and rapid urbanisation alongside deteriorating urban infrastructure.

“None of this was addressed by the Finance Minister’s speech,” Chidambaram said, adding that the muted response in Parliament reflected the lack of engagement with these concerns.